I have just listened to the third and final episode in the excellent series on BBC7 of “Fair Stood the Wind for France” by H.E. Bates about an RAF aircrew evading capture in WWII France.
After the conclusion of the episode, the BBC have added some genuine WWII 1943 interviews with men of an RAF P51 Mustang squadron. They’re pretty interesting, and feature:
W/O Grimwood (maintenance who tells of receiving the Mustangs for service and a joke attached)
P/O Sinclair (pilot, who sounds like an Aussie or maybe a Kiwi, who talks about using them for ground attack and details a mission), and
P/O T.E.D. Mitchell talking to interviewer George Corey (sp?) about the Mustangs.
If you want to skip the drama and go to the interviews, they start at about 51.00 minutes into the recording.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/sunday/
The link to listen to them is on this page (click on Listen Again at 10.00-11.00am)
Does anyone know which squadron this would have been?
By: Dave Homewood - 31st May 2005 at 12:31
Cheers Colin. I hope they’ve kept the others in the archives too, and I hope they’ll assist your research.
By: ColFord - 31st May 2005 at 12:01
Definitely 268 Squadron
As Steve has indicated, these three personnel are from No.268 Squadron RAF.
W/O Jack Grimwood MBE, Senior Squadron Engineering NCO
F/O M M Sinclair RAAF, later shot down January 1943 and PoW until May 1945. Became a Surgeon in Australia post War.
F/O TED Mitchell RAFVR, completed tour with 268, did a later tour with No.II(AC) Sqdn and HQ 35(Recce) Wing, survived the War.
Interviews were done late 1942 at Snailwell. Were only three of a number of interviews done that day. Very interesting to hear that they have survived in the BBC archives, so now another path of research and investigation to follow!!
Regards,
By: Dave Homewood - 31st May 2005 at 06:45
My pleasure Steve. Thanks for the extra details.
By: SteveB - 30th May 2005 at 17:23
268 Sqdn
Dave
Thanks very much for this lead very interesting.
It seems likely that these interviews were made with Trevor Mitchell and Morris Sinclair of 268Sqdn. Morris Sinclair was an Aussie. He was hit by flak on 22 Jan 1943 and became a POW.
This info is courtesy of massive research into 268 Sqdn undertaken by Colin Ford in Australia.
Steve
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May 30, 2005 at 12:47 pm